


Through You

by suyari



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-10
Updated: 2013-10-10
Packaged: 2017-12-29 00:03:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/998488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suyari/pseuds/suyari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura reflects on her friendship with Elixir.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through You

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own the X-men.
> 
> Spoilers: X-23 (Wolverine In Hell) Issue One

She knew they didn't like her. Nothing much had changed from before. The others were more experienced now, but they were just as afraid as they had always been. Afraid of the world. Afraid of life. Afraid of being alone. Afraid of crossing lines. Laura was not afraid and that made her different. Not being afraid made the others more nervous around her. For some reason they seemed to think unafraid was equivalent to having no morals. She saw no reason to correct them.

She had done a great many things in her young life. Most of them unutterable around polite or delicate company. Yet, for all the older generation was now debating her involvement, Laura had loved every moment of the past year. For the first time she felt a part of them. She could make a difference, use her abilities to benefit them. They were all so squeamish she knew they would never be able to do what needed to be done. And it was better they were not approached to. No, Laura did not regret her time as a member of a secretly sanctioned off branch of less than noble X-men. If she were to speak of it, to be allowed to, she would say she had never felt more at home than in that year. Had never felt so close to a group of people than she did with her team. Individuals whom were all less than perfect; with crosses to bear and pasts to erase. Even Elixir - the quietest, gentlest member of the team - had the darkness within him. He did not enjoy it. He did not understand it. But it was with him, carried along in every moment.

There were brief passing moments when Laura thought perhaps this life was not best suited for him. Perhaps he needed shielding as the others still did. And then he would do something remarkable, something that wavered within the gray, wobbling along the line, and she would wait. Arms out to catch him.

Laura had never gotten along well with others her own age. But in X-Force it had not been difficult. She had more experience than he, she often felt a strong desire to keep it so. She would protect him, she never lied to him, and he afforded her the same courtesy.

They were odd moments; even now they seem odd. Comforting, companionable. Safe. Moments when she wondered if this was what her peers felt. Together at the table sharing a meal, relaxing in the large living room of the aerie, looking across the landscape or up at the stars. Just Elixir and her. Sometimes they would talk, most times they did not need to. At first she had felt as if they were left so often together because they were seen as insignificant, unimportant, _children_. It took her several weeks to realize no one forced them together, they simply sought one another out. At first, they were no more than opposites. He was a life giver, a peace promoter, inexperienced and unprepared. She was a life taker, had no qualms with torture and had more than enough experience for three of them. He would ask questions and she would answer. He would make comments and she would correct him. Somehow - she couldn't be sure how - it had evolved.

Laura found, there was a certain peace in Elixir's company. A mutant her own age with no family to claim him and a past he'd rather forget. He was flawed, imperfect, unbalanced, but he was every moment a beacon of life. She could smell it on him, like snow on the wind. A unique touch of essence that she could not pinpoint. It generated in his core and drifted out from every pore. Alluring and intriguing, at times in equal parts soothing and taunting. He did not smell like Wolverine, herself, or even what she recalled of Jay Guthrie. Elixir was not a creature of regeneration, but a being of constant restructuring. He did not simply begin to heal when he was injured, but was ever renewing parts of himself - cell by cell across himself without a thought. Keeping himself healthy, keeping himself ready. Sometimes she wondered if he was even aging, or if a hundred years from that moment when she looked to her left he would be there looking as he did in that moment.

She had never invested much in the future. She never saw any need. But there were times when Elixir was sprawled across a couch and she was seated in a nearby chair, legs tucked beneath her in ever constant readiness, times when he would speak, or say nothing at all. And she would wonder. Was there a future? Could there be more to life than just existing? Did someone caring about you change the natural progression of one's life?

It was difficult now to think of anything. She was hardly sleeping, and no one seemed to know what to make of her, how to best respond. They lashed out at her, at one another; confused, upset, hurting. Life was a difficult balance. Yet, as they targeted her for their own venting or redemption, Laura was happy. Because as they singled her out, they forgot more and more. They did not think of him, and they did not take aim. While all of Utopia spent their hours trying to decide how they felt about what she and others had been ordered to do, their minds drifted further and further away from the boy who could fix so much of the hurt, if he were not so broken.

And in those moments, when she ceased to register as more than mere conversation, Laura would disappear. She would go quietly, undisturbed. Moving through shadows and slipping through doorways until she reached him. Curled up in the darkness, forgotten and alone. She would sit beside him as she had done all year. They would look at the blank walls, listening to one another breathing. She would look at him sometimes, and see the darkness of his form. The inky insignia of betrayal, an ageless stain upon his soul. She would wonder if he would ever be the same. If one day his eyes would refocus, the world suddenly re-registering. If he would look up at her and smile. If he would know he had not been alone.

Laura wanted her friend back. The one person who had come to truly understand her. In ways no one else really could. In blood and sweat, in pain and sacrifice. In sickness and in health. In tears. In words. In days, in moments. In life and death, and the marks of one another on their souls.

But what Laura _wanted_ never found her. She did not think it would begin to acquiesce over Elixir. She wondered if she thought the opposite, if she hoped for the opposite, if it would make a difference. The part of her that was him would not let her. The part of him that was her would not comply. So she would sit and wait. Day after day. Elixir had been lost to them before. He would not ever, could not ever truly leave. One day he would return to her, blink and ask where they were. She would reply and help him to stand, inhaling deeply to feel him there, alive in her lungs, the way he was meant to be. It did not matter if it took a year. Or ten. Or twenty. Or a hundred. Elixir would not fade. Laura would not leave him.

Perhaps then, in that distant, hazy future she would understand what loving someone meant.


End file.
